Underestimating the importance of expressing intrinsic motivation in job interviews

Across five studies (N = 1428), we documented an important prediction problem in recruitment: Job candidates mispredicted how much recruiters valued expressions of intrinsic motivation (e.g., learning that a candidate desired meaningful work). In contrast, candidates more accurately predicted how much recruiters valued expressions of extrinsic motivation (e.g., learning that a candidate desired opportunities for career advancement). Social distance produced this discrepancy: People failed to realize others cared about intrinsic motivation as much as they did; therefore, they underestimated how much expressing that they valued intrinsic motivation mattered to others. Indeed, recruiters giving recruitment pitches also mispredicted how much admitted candidates valued learning that a company emphasized intrinsic motivation. As a consequence of the misprediction, candidates chose suboptimal pitches that failed to express their intrinsic motivation during job interviews, unless explicitly encouraged to take the recruiters' perspective.